


Ambidextrous

by Kaleidoscope_Carousel



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1196328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleidoscope_Carousel/pseuds/Kaleidoscope_Carousel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany is not having a good day. Some parts of kindergarten are really hard. Santana tries to help out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambidextrous

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my wonderful wife who prompted me, and kept badgering me in the most loving way possible to finish it.

  
When Santana’s mom drops Santana off at Brittany’s house on Saturday after the first week of kindergarten, the little blonde girl isn’t in any of her usual places. She’s not in the kitchen, dancing across the linoleum in her socked feet; she’s not in the living room, tempting their brand new kitten out from under the couch with pieces of Kraft singles; she’s not in the treehouse or the tire swing in the back yard.

When Santana finally finds her, Brittany is lying on her bedroom floor, surrounded by reams of crumpled paper and pencil crayons scattered everywhere. Her forehead is creased in concentration, and her tongue is sticking out the side of her mouth. Santana watches Brittany’s expression change, her usually sunny demeanour clouding over, as she takes both hands and scrunches the piece of white paper in front of her into a ball. Pouting she sits up and pulls her knees to her chest. It’s only then that Santana notices she has a green pencil crayon clutched in the chubby fist of her left hand.

“Hi Brittany,” she says “what are you doing?” The other girl looks up, and quickly rubs the back of her fist across her eyes. She doesn’t want Santana knowing she was crying. Santana made fun of Noah because he scraped his knee before class on Thursday, and Brittany doesn’t want her new best friend thinking she’s a crybaby.

“Nothing San,” she says, turning away slightly.

“It didn’t look like nothing to me. Can I see your drawing?”

“I wasn’t drawing.” Brittany squishes the ball of paper up even more for good measure. Santana pads into the room and sits down with a thump next to her friend. She doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t know what to say, she’s never seen Brittany like this before. So, she just takes one of the uncrumpled sheets of paper and an orange pencil crayon, and starts doodling a little sun. She would have used yellow, she knows that’s Brittany’s favourite colour, but it never shows up enough on white paper. When she’s finished, she switches to blue and writes four of the words she learned how to spell in class that week in big capital letters:

TO BRITTANY LOVE SANTANA

Nervously, she nudges the drawing over to Brittany with her foot. It obviously doesn’t have the desired effect, because if possible Brittany’s face falls even more. Confused, and a little hurt, Santana stands up in a huff.

“Well if you don’t like the drawing you could just say so. You don’t have to be so stupid about it!” She immediately regrets her words as Brittany’s eyes fill up with tears.

“That’s the problem,” she wails, “I am stupid. I can’t do this, San!” Santana Lopez, even at five years old, doesn’t really do hugs, but Brittany is obviously really upset, so she sits down and wraps her arms around her friend trying to comfort her as best as possible.

“Don’t be silly, Britt Britt, you’re not stupid. I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it. Plus,” she adds “you can already do a cartwheel and a handstand. I think you can do anything.” Brittany sniffles a little bit, and leans over into the hug.

“Not this, San.” Brittany says, and slowly and carefully smooths out the piece of paper that she has been holding in her hand the whole time. Santana’s not sure, but she thinks that the series of green scribbles on the page are supposed to spell out the word “Brittany.” There’s something that looks kind of like a “B” or maybe an “8”, and the two wavy stick things in the middle could be “t”s. The “y” is backwards, but even Santana sometimes gets that one mixed up. “See, look. I’m so stupid I can’t even write my own name.” Santana traces a finger over the green markings, and then looks at her own version high on her page above the vivid orange sun.

“Well. . .” she says, an idea coming to her mind. “Maybe I could help you.” Brittany’s looking at her with bright eyes, hope written all across her face.

“You’d do that?”

“Of course I will. You’re my best friend, Britt Britt.” Santana says, gently taking the green pencil crayon from the now smiling girl sitting next to her. With her right hand, she takes another piece of unmarred paper, and with her left sets the tip of the pencil crayon against it. “Okay, so this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to write your name, and then you can trace it, just like we do sometimes in school. I can even help more if it’s too hard.” Brittany nods, much more enthusiastic now that a solution has been offered.

Santana writes slowly, and as carefully as she can. She even remembers to draw the tail of the “y” in the right direction. When she’s finished, she slides the paper back over to Brittany, who now has a red pencil crayon held in her hand. “Christmas colours,” she says brightly. “I love Christmas.” Santana laughs.

“Me too.” She says. Brittany bends her head to the task in front of her. At first it seems to go well, at least the red line over the first part of Santana’s “B” is a lot straighter than before. But soon it’s obvious that Brittany is still struggling. Her tongue is sticking out again, and her forehead is creased in a frown. Worried that her friend might get upset again, Santana leans across Brittany’s lap, and covers the blonde girl’s left hand with her own. She guides the sweep of the crayon across the page and although the end result isn’t perfect, at least it’s a little bit more legible. Brittany is still frowning, though.

“Thanks for your help Santana, but I don’t think I’m ever gonna get this. It’s too hard.” Resigned, Britt once again scrunches the paper up and throws it toward the trash. With her right hand. It flies in a perfect arc and lands square in the wire basket. Something clicks in Santana’s brain. She’d seen Brittany throw things before, when they were playing catch on the playground. The other girl had always used her right hand. So why was she holding the pencil in her left?

“Britt, could you do that again?” Santana asks, holding out another ball of paper. Brittany looks confused, but shrugs and takes the item from her best friend. Once again she winds up and tosses it with her right hand. It misses the trash can by a few inches, but now Santana is sure she sees what the problem is. “Britt Britt,” she says softly “can you try writing again, one more time. For me?”

“You know I can’t do it San, I’m just not good at school stuff.” The blonde replies.

“Please?” Santana asks, doing her best puppy dog pout. It always seems to work on her dad, especially when he hasn’t been around for a while. Brittany just laughs.

“You’re silly San. But okay, just one more time.” Gamely, Brittany once more scoops up her green pencil crayon and grips it tight in her left hand, but Santana gently pries the fist open. Brittany watches her friend, confused. “I thought you wanted me to try again, San, what are you doing?”

“Try it this way, Britt.” Santana clumsily holds the pencil crayon in her right hand. It feels completely wrong, but she wants to show Brittany as best she can. When she’s done demonstrating, she hands the crayon back to her friend, making sure to place it in the little girl’s right palm. “Go ahead, try it.” Brittany doesn’t look convinced, but she bends her head to her task.

Although her head is down, Santana can practically feel the smile growing across Brittany’s face as she realises she is actually succeeding. It’s not anywhere near perfect, and it isn’t really all that pretty, but when it’s all done all the letters are legible and Brittany is looking at Santana with eyes shining with pride. It falters a bit though, and Santana catches her friend glancing at her left hand, dark against the stark whiteness of the paper. “I did it San! I wrote it and it looks right! But…” Brittany hesitates.

“But what, Britt Britt?” Santana asks.

“I can’t write with my left hand. Not the way you do. I just…I wanted to be like you San. You’re special.”

“But Britt, you’re special, too!” Santana insists. “Lots of people can write with their left hand, my brother can and we don’t want to be like him.” Brittany makes a face.

“Ewww, no way. Boys are yucky.”

“But nobody I know is like you.” Brittany smiles at this.

“Pinky promise?” She says.

“Pinky promise.” Santana repeats, solemnly, holding out her right pinky for Brittany to take with her left. They leave their pinkies tangled together between them as they add flowers, and what is possibly a duck to Santana’s original drawing. One little girl drawing with her left hand, and the other with her right.


End file.
